Troubled Times for Network Evening News

Washington Post ^ | 3/10/02 | Howard Kurtz

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

For two decades now, through war and scandal, through serious times and silly times, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw have ruled the television world from their network thrones.

Their companies were bought and sold, their audience distracted by new choices and new technology. But no one dared mess with America's anchors.

Now, with little warning, that may be changing. In an age when even Ted Koppel is deemed expendable, when ABC is willing to replace "Nightline" with funnyman David Letterman, the once-sacrosanct evening news suddenly seems vulnerable to bottom-line executives at Disney, General Electric and Viacom.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Why should the major 3 networks attempt to compete with cable...?

[The Electrician]

Kurtz seems to have missed an important factor - that millions of people have gotten sick of the leftist bias on the network news and are intentionally tuning out.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

He does, but how much of cable... isn't biased as well?

[catonsville]

The Networks were their own worse enemies. They really believed they were too important to be disturbed by the likes of talk radio, the internet and the Fox Channel.

They were wrong.

[SW6906]

That's the idea: people are tuning out the increasinly liberal-biased network news for cable news that is biased more to their liking (or at least not so blatantly biased).

[Libloather]

Brokaw, Jennings and Rather

Dewey, Cheetam and Howe

[Oschisms]

Churnem' Burnem' and Spurnem'

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

"I'm gonna get a cheap lawyer".

[airborne]

Your post # 4 is on the money. I have been getting my news from those very sources for almost two years now. I do not bother with the network news and only tune in to CNN, MSNBC and CNBC to check on the lastest Dem talking points that the libnewspeak are promoting.

Thank you Jim Robinson and FreeRepublic for giving me a place to see the real news of the day!

[anton]

For the 140,000,000 people who do not have cable or internet, these liberal front men continue to shape the mood of this country. Jesse Jackson, People for the American Way and Alec Baldwin could not survive without their help. Bill Klinton would have been removed from office and prosecuted. The Kyoto Treaty would have been exposed as a disgrace, and on, and on, and on.

This will not change. The America hating globalist forces will not rest when the current generation of front men are gone. This will take dismantling of the FCC and the convergence of TV and the Internet to solve this problem.

Until the consumer can choose his news source, this country will continue to suffer from powerful America haters.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Can people on welfare afford televisions?

[alcuin]

When Brokaw, Jennings and Rather retire, it is a perfect time for these corporations to decide their newscasts are no longer worth it," said Ken Bode . .

For more on this crisis in American education, we go now to Candy Former-Sage, live, standing outside an impressive and ambient building somewhere.

(Three seconds, Candy. Put out the cigarette. And what's the name of the building? Candy? CANDY?)

I think we've lost Candy. For more on this we'll go instead to . .

[ridensm]

Good riddance to bad rubish, those three have done enough to ruin America.

[ValerieUSA]

the programs will no longer be shielded by their prestige.

PRESTIGE? They've become a tradition, one as outdated and harmful to the nation now as husbands beating wives.

[technomage]

Kurtz seems to have missed an important factor - that millions of people have gotten sick of the leftist bias on the network news and are intentionally tuning out.

That is THE major reason why their newscasts are losing viewers! Yet, the left just DOES NOT GET IT!

Assume for a moment that the country is evenly divided between conservatives and liberals (I know, I know, but just assume). What company or business would deliberately alienate 50% of their potential customer base? Most of the news establishment. If I were a stockholder I would be very upset at this.

CNNMSNBCABCCBSNBC just do not get it! It is not the graphics, the tickers, the sets, the lights, the locations, the faces. It's the obvious liberal left bias in their reporting that has turned off, and is turning off, more and more of their viewers.

Gone are the days when these left wing talking heads can just spew forth their obviously biased reporting without any consequences. The peeples are just not as stupid as the networks think.

I have not watched CNNMSNBCABCCBSNBC news for years now. Get most of mine off the Internet and Fox. Advertisers sure do not like to hear that!

[SouthCarolinaKit]

John Leo's current column tells the real story. More than ten years ago a multi-part LA TIMES story reported on how unfairly the topic of abortion was reported because all the reporters were biased pro-abortion. Leo said it was the first major report which he could remember which went unmentioned in the mainstream press. No discussion groups, no rountables. . . just as though the report never happened. If finding more and more examples like this which make the people no longer trust the networks. If they're not trusted, why should they be watched? They're not.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

I stopped watching this foul biased garbage many years ago, it's not news.

[Joe Boucher]

I think your job as a citizen is to observe both sides of issues and to make an informed decision. Not just look at liberal bents from A.B.C., C.N.N, C.B.S. or N.B.C. nor more conservative sides shown by maybe FOX. I do thank GOD that finally we have a large network at least presenting something a little more conservative then Kokie Roberts or Dan Blather. Blather, Brokaw and the socialist Canadian are tired. Get some fresh blood in there maybe some that aren't members of the American Socialist party.

[anton]

Yea, they all have televisions. Its a constitutional right now. No kidding, the state welfare agencies are manadated by the federal gov't to include TV in a family budget. And they all watch Dan The Man Rather and listen to his ridiculous BS. Then they smoke crack and shot a convenience store clerk in the head for $60 bucks. At least some of them do.

[Gothmog]

Ha ha ha, you'll have to catch up to me on your other post. As far as this one goes:

Kurtz says: "When Schieffer joined the CBS Washington bureau in 1969, there were 26 correspondents; now there are 10."

Quite a dramtic change! did Kurtz acount for technological changes over the past 20+ years? Maybe there are less correspondents and more technicians?

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

There's a good reason why FOX is extra on the cable... side. Then again these people may be buying skin anyway so it would be part of the package.

[cibco]

Dewey, Cheetam and Howe

You must be a 3 Stooges fan. :0)

[MissAmericanPie]

"Unless something dramatic happens, inevitably, the network newscasts are gone."..."

Kick some dirt on the commie scum buckets and be done with them. No one watches them anymore, everyone is sick of their propaganda, the sooner their broadcasts are over and done with the better, and not a moment too soon. Maybe, with these infamous scum gone, and their, "Hate America", propaganda taken off the air, the world won't hate us enough to try to blow us off the map.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Wouldn't it be great to see Leave it to Beaver, The Rifleman, Andy Griffith... instead?

[vaudine]

"...the network newscasts are gone." Yessssssss!

vaudine

[Libloather]

You must be a 3 Stooges fan...

Not if I see their mugs on the evening news. Nyuk, nyuk...

[Misterioso]

One telling sentence in Kurtz's column alludes to the FCC's role in powering up the news divisions of the networks.

"When you would ask [CBS founder] Bill Paley why he'd put on money losing things like documentaries -- they were worried about getting their licenses renewed," said Daniel Schorr, a longtime CBS newsman now with National Public Radio.

This goes to show how and why the network newscasts have become nothing more than propaganda outlets for the statist monolith that Washington has become. PC from DC.

[Consort]

"CNNMSNBCABCCBSNBC just do not get it!"

Neither does CNBC.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

And who funds PBS?

[McGavin999]

Well, CBS will contract with CNN for their news, NBC will get their news from MSNBC, and ABC and FOX will get their news from FOX. In a couple of years ABC and FOX will be the only ones with viewers.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

We can only hope.

[technomage]

"CNNMSNBCABCCBSNBC just do not get it!"

Neither does CNBC

Yup, the above should have read:

CNNMSNBCCNBCABCCBSNBCCNNFN

[cidrasm]

Can people on welfare afford televisions?

Are you kidding? Today, television is a necessity. Last month, KC suffers a really bad ice storm that knocks out power/cable/phone to several thousand people. The second most important "utility" for restoration (according to the people) is their cable. Electricity only ranked number one because it was needed for their TV to work.

[ForGod'sSake]

MORE good news???????

FGS

[Misterioso]

And who funds PBS?

It's not about government funding of PBS. It's about the FCC's control of broadcasting content through the threat of license revocation. The networks have been in bed with government regulators for years, and the payback is propaganda in support of the statist agenda. If broadcasting had been free to develop programming without the influence of the FCC, left wing agitprop would never have taken root. Nobody would watch that crap, and "the news" would go back to someone reading a ticker tape, like it used to be.

[Landru]

Whadda ya think about that (#37) cIc??

Seems you've approached the FCC matter from a completely different perspective.

[Landru]

"MORE good news?"

I dunno, FGS.

Getting rid of the [old] Three Stooges only to have 'em replaced with three younger ones only means to me many more years of suffering the wretched propaganda.

GOT to get rid of the clowns behind the curtains, IMO.
(~to which I'd say, "Good Luck.")

The clowns behind the curtains pulling the Stooge's levers are then again only top-dog pawns of whoever's really calling the shots.

It's got to be viewed a lot like peeling-back the skin on an onion getting to the power-broker Leftist-Socialist SOBs at the core of this mess.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Sue, Grabbit, and Runn.